Book News Roundup: Top Literary Picks For Autumn

Summer is officially over, but there’s no need to feel gloomy about it. It’s time for a new season of book releases! The Guardian has now revealed its top literary picks for autumn and the full list is available here. Another list can be found at the Huffington Post’s US website.

In other book news:

A new campaign is being launched by a British charity to target early readers with wider access to international fiction. In recent years children in the UK have become increasingly less likely to read stories by foreign authors, but the charity project In Other Words hopes to change that. The project, created by the BookTrust, is looking for submissions for the best foreign fiction for ages six to twelve.

The shortlist for the Scottish Crime Book of the year is now out, and the list of authors includes Val McDermid for Splinter the Silence and three other writers. The winner is to be revealed later this week (Friday 9 September) at the Bloody Scotland writing festival.

The Society of Authors has officially taken charge of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. The award had previously been managed by the BookTrust, and now with this change in administration some big changes will be taking place. Notably, the number of longlist entries will be reduced from twenty to twelve – a plan by the SoA to help focus marketing on a smaller number of titles and ‘enhance the visibility’ of the twelve titles across booksellers.

Finally, Michael Gove, former justice secretary for David Cameron’s cabinet and one-time candidate for the Conservative leadership, has returned to news headlines this week – it turns out The Times want him back as a columnist and monthly book reviewer (Gove wrote for the newspaper for a decade between 1996 and 2005, and contributed during his time as MP until 2010).